Artwork Page for White Cross-Lined Bowl with Turtle and Sun

Details / Information for White Cross-Lined Bowl with Turtle and Sun

White Cross-Lined Bowl with Turtle and Sun

c. 4000–3400 BCE

Egypt, Predynastic (5000–2950 BCE), Naqada I–II

(3900–3300 BCE)
Medium
Nile silt pottery
Measurements
Diameter: 18.1 cm (7 1/8 in.); Diameter of mouth: 13.7 cm (5 3/8 in.); Overall: 6.7 cm (2 5/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust 1920.2008
Public Domain
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Location
107 Egyptian
Print
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Did You Know?

This bowl was built by hand from coils, then smoothed and burnished.

Description

Red polished vessels with white painted decoration (known as white cross-lined ware or C-ware) represent Egypt’s oldest known tradition in painted pottery. The decoration on this bowl, painted after firing, features the sun on the side and a turtle on the bottom of the vessel. The turtle was considered the enemy of the Egyptian sun god Ra because it preferred the murky river bottom to the sunlight.
A wide, open-mouthed, reddish-brown bowl curves in from a central perimeter. The bowl has been painted with light sand-colored vertical stripes that alternate between strips of horizontal zigzags painted loosely down the side of the bowl and no paint. One of the plain strips has two zigzags painted solely at the top.

White Cross-Lined Bowl with Turtle and Sun

c. 4000–3400 BCE

Egypt, Predynastic (5000–2950 BCE), Naqada I–II (3900–3300 BCE)

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